Am I the only person who hates the ponies being divided and turning racists towards each other in the Summer Sun Setback (Unpopular Opinion I hate that episode) and the finale. I know it’s because the terrible trio were telling them to, messing with the weather and ruining their crops (the latter was never shown) But I think that is the most underhated part of the finale. I will give points explaining why?

-Ponies (Unicorn, Pegasi and Earth). Had been living together peacefully for 1000s of years. In the past seasons even if some of them are jerks or evil. I had never seen ponies being racist towards each other in the show. It makes more sense towards ponies if it were dragons, griffons, changelings and even mules.
-It seems only made so that the finale can have more drama.
-It makes all of ponykind besides the mane 6 look completely stupid who would easily believe two strangers. I know Chrysalis and Cozy are manipulators, but they were also complete strangers that ponies easily believed.
-Also if Cozy is treated as such a threat that she needs to be taken to Tartarus. Why did no one notice her? I bet it’s because the Princesses didn’t tell anyone about her.
-It also ruins that different ponies (Unicorn, Pegasi and Earth) can be the bestest friends. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, as well as Lyra and Sweetie Drops for example. Why they be suddenly divided over racist rumours.
-The way it was resolved was by random foals we have never seen telling them to be friends again.
-Also this goes way beyond the finale. But I kinda hate that Twilight’s Friendship Journal is treated like the bible. As well as turning friendship into a religion.
-But the worst part is that even if I never seen these recent comics connecting G4 to G5. They did the ponies being racist towards each other plot again.

So in conclusion, the ponies suddenly turning racists towards each other is underhated, never shown in past seasons, made for drama, makes ponykind stupid, makes Equestria law enforcement suck, ruins best friends by falling trap to them, awful resolution and has to connect itself with G5.

I think that this is the second worst part about the finale after Discord being Grogar. I barely hear anyone ever talk about it.

Someone needs to have a chat with the writers for a Q&A. I’m most curious of what they will say to rationalize these developments.

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You’re not alone. That’s not to say I find the idea of ponies becoming divided unbelievable; more that it was executed in such a way that ponies are more shallow and their harmony more fragile than the rest of the series might have us believe.

There are many things wrong with the last season, which is why Hasbro should go back and rewrite it somewhat.

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The writing for Ponykind as a whole throughout the show told us that the Ponies are essentially apathetic towards everything around them and are so entrenched in their pacifistic ideals that it boarders on cowardice and gullibility in every way possible.

"Do you know what kind of creature waits for its own slaughter? Sheep... Sheep."

- Apollyon, For Honor

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I hate it when writers wrote absurd storylines for the sake of 'themes'.

Of every villain that exists, I'm convinced the unnamed ponies are the real ones.

It really just made Equestria's harmony look pretty pathetic, and made it seem like all the ponies were just waiting their whole lives for an excuse to be racist. Especially the way they showed it, Chrysalis goes up to a few unicorn performers, calls their work "Inconsequential" and tries to sell them some stupid crap about being better than "Performance", and for some reason they buy that? They seemed pretty proud of their show and excited to impress, this is probably their special talents. I'd expect them to tell Chrysalis to fuck off and that she's a total flankhole for insulting their jobs and thinking she's so much better.

All of this was done to try and make the Friendship school seem important, because it's only the Student Six and some other nameless students from the school that end up saving the day. Because apparently only ponies who went to Twilight Sparkle's school of friendship understand friendship enough to not be super racist to ponies they've been living alongside for their entire lives just because of some rumors and damaged crops. 1000+ years of Harmony and it can all be undone just like that. I don't mind them trying to make the students and school important, but this idea is stupid.

Also, I'm still salty that they went this route, but didn't at the very least let the Cutie Mark Crusaders be the ones to bring the three pony races back together. If you have to go this route, that just makes sense, right? The CMC have been around since day one, far longer than the school or students, each one a member of the different pony races but best friends to such an extent they've got practically the same mark. Instead nameless students got to do it, and I've had people defend it to me with "Yeah, would have been nice to be the CMC, but it had to be the students to show the school's importance!". Yeah, no. The CMC should know friendship better than any of the kids at that school by this point, they deserve it more.

7732219 All of it was just an excuse to bring back The Windigos, as if somehow the stakes weren't already high enough with three former villains teaming up. Except The Windigos had only previously appeared in two in-universe works of fiction, including a play that failed to establish whether it was based on true events or was exaggerated for the sake of its audience. So after the show in-universe had the windigos be treated as a work of fiction, why would they suddenly establish them as being real with no prior build up or foreshadowing aside from a vague hint of them potentially being real in one episode all the way back in Season 2?

It's the same problem as "Fame and Misfortune" but flipped on its head, "Fame and Misfortune" acted as if suddenly the ponies with real lives we'd been following were really just characters in a play whose flaws could be picked apart. Whereas in "The Ending of The End" it acts as if works of in-universe fiction can substitute for foreshadowing of something being made real out of the blue.

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I'm torn - on the one hand it does feel way too easy after centuries of unity, but on the other hand it's very thematic. Perhaps if Grogar's Bell was an artefact which allowed one to spread subtle memes instead of/as well as it's canon powers...

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Honestly, there was so much stupid in the series finale that I felt my brain temporarily shut down from all the hatred I had for the writing that I overlooked this detail.

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Summer Sun Setback (Unpopular Opinion I hate that episode)

There's just so many plot holes.

I don't dislike it with quite the same passion as I do the Rusty Bucket arc in Frenemies, but even with the grace I give the latter seasons, it's hard to reconcile all the obnoxious details that keep piling up.

-It also ruins that different ponies (Unicorn, Pegasi and Earth) can be the bestest friends. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, as well as Lyra and Sweetie Drops for example. Why they be suddenly divided over racist rumours.

I don't think it does? As far as I'm aware those ponies stayed friends.

Same with the Cakes not nessicarly kicking their foals out because they were different tribes.

That being said, I object to Ponyvile being involved in that mess in the first place. It makes the town feel a bit less special as a result.

They could have made it a war between cities and used Manehattan instead, and still have the tribal divisions since those cities are largely segregated anyway.

It's still dumb, since between Rarity and Pinkie Pie's travels one would imagine they would notice something, but maybe they were all busy babysitting Twilight Sparkle in Ponyvile or something.

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All of this was done to try and make the Friendship school seem important, because it's only the Student Six and some other nameless students from the school that end up saving the day.

The Friendship School would have worked better if they had actually shown anyone being made better by it. Even the Student Six are already model citizens after a few admonishments more or less.

As it is it just sort of fizzles. The one time anyone learns anything is when the student six do something together.

We could have just had it be a summer camp by Luna's castle and had the same effect.

Potentially more so, since they had been hinting at using the building for something since forever and fans had a emotional attachment to it.

Also, I'm still salty that they went this route, but didn't at the very least let the Cutie Mark Crusaders be the ones to bring the three pony races back together.

Frankly having them and the Pillars band together with other characters we've met before to defend Equestria would have been awesome.

Maybe tie the friendship map together in some way by having people the main six helped act as the ones to rally ponies together. Wasted chances.

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I don't have a problem with the The Windigos per say, but it's fairly obvious they exist to provide clout points for the drama, without actually impacting the plot in any meaningful fashion.

Even a level of snow on the ground during the final battle that rises as time goes on would have given them a presence that they desperately needed.

I get why three random people with localized supervillain esq powers weren't big enough stakes for the final.

They still should have at least made a cursory effort to make the Windigos feel relevant if they were going to use them.

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Pretty sure you meant to quote Splashtraveler for your first section, but you quoted me twice by accident.

The Friendship School would have worked better if they had actually shown anyone being made better by it. Even the Student Six are already model citizens after a few admonishments more or less.

As it is it just sort of fizzles. The one time anyone learns anything is when the student six do something together.

I still find it funny that the school isn't even what made the Student Six become friends. Yeah, they all ended up in the same place because of being brought to the school, but they formed their friendship just by hanging out and doing their own thing outside it. I'm pretty convinced their friendship would thrive just as well without the school at all.

Potentially more so, since they had been hinting at using the building as a sight for something since forever and fans had a emotional attachment to it.

Yeah, I did want to see more of that castle...and then it got desecrated by a giant crystal clubhouse.

Frankly having them and the Pillars band together with other characters we've met before to defend Equestria would have been awesome.

Maybe tie the friendship map together in some way by having people the main six helped act as the ones to rally ponies together. Wasted chances.

That sounds pretty cool, would have been nice to see the Pillars actually get to be useful other than just being rainbow laser fuel, and the CMC definitely deserved it especially after spending most of the Season 8 finale just locked in a closet.

Nope. I dislike that it all happened so fast as well.

I think maybe if the villain trio had been doing it in the background for the second half of the season it might be more believable but definitely not all in one episode, and what seems like in the span of one afternoon.

I dislike the School of Friendship and Student Six in general. I do think the school sounds like the next logical step for Twilight being the Princess of Friendship, but I'll always roll my eyes because the whole concept sound dumb. Maybe a community center or friendship embassy instead?

While I don't hate the student six, I just never clicked with them unfortunately. To me, they'll always be a group of teenagers that took up too much screentime and never deserved their status as the next generation of harmony defenders.

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I think maybe if the villain trio had been doing it in the background for the second half of the season it might be more believable but definitely not all in one episode, and what seems like in the span of one afternoon.

I think they're meant to be doing it since Summer Sun Setback. So there's a implication that they've being doing it for awhile.

Some background appearances however (like what they did with Starlight Glimmer) would have definitely helped to sell the concept though.

Maybe a community center or friendship embassy instead?

Or a Summer Camp. It solves part of people's issues with the Mane Six working there if it's a part time instructor position.

You could then rotate instructors as needed be to get fresh perspectives, and allow the Ponyvile Five to have actual lives.

Plus, why else would you build a expensive (probably government funded) facility way out in the boonies?

In particular, I felt like they kept forcing this idea of Twilight making people doing constant tests, even though it didn't fit with her goals at all.

One or two maybe, but not the constant barrage of paper work that was implied by the writers.

To me, they'll always be a group of teens with attitude

Yeah their introduction was particularly bad, as it played to all the most prevalent tropes of sassy rule breaking teenagers.

I warmed up to some of them eventually, but very little of what made me like them started with the main plot, and literally none of it happened during their debut.

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I think they're meant to be doing it since Summer Sun Setback. So there's a implication that they've being doing it for awhile. Some background appearances however (like what they did with Starlight Glimmer) would have definitely helped to sell the concept though.

Hmm, I must have missed that then.

Or a Summer Camp. It solves part of people's issues with the Mane Six working there if it's a part time instructor position.

Summer camp makes it too seasonal imo. Like she only opens it every summer. That's why I went with a community center that she could have open all the time. I like your idea of the part-time instructors and it makes more sense than all of them being teachers honestly.

You have a good point about the constant tests. If they went with a community center, I would think they'd do something more like the outdoor lesson like in "Non-Compete Clause".

I warmed up to some of them eventually, but very little of what made me like them started with the main plot, and literally none of it happened during their debut.

I guess I did too. At least as individuals. As a group, they didn't deserve anything and took up too much screentime.

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Summer camp makes it too seasonal imo.

Spring or Summer then.

The main reasons being that it would be a lot easier to justify part time instructors for a few months as opposed to a whole year.

Plus it wouldn't be all that hard to plan out.

They haven't used fall scenery in years, and most of the winter episodes involving the school can be rewritten with very little effort to take place in summer.

Even Hearth's Warming Eve Club works better if Gallus was leaving his friends for roughly a whole year, and couldn't be sure that any of them were coming back next year.

As a group, they didn't deserve anything and took up too much screentime.

Plus they were too insulated. Having the Main Six get out and interact casually with others outside of the group gave them dimension.

I think outside of their teachers, the only time that happened in a meaningful way was between Smolder and Spike, and that didn't happened nearly enough for my taste.

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Completely agree. The ponies turning racist after a millennia of togetherness made zero sense. They even had a holiday that was entirely focused on the idea that if you were racist/prejudiced against each other, freezing demons would come and destroy everything. And you can't even do that "that's an old pony's tale" excuse because every single ancient magic force has been revealed to be real.

Also, I really hate it because for the first six or seven seasons, ponies were usually portrayed as being the most open and accepting of the Equestrian world. Griffons, yaks, dragons, and all the other races were usually the ones being stubborn or jerks, and it was only through the ponies they learned to overcome their issues. You can say that's preferential treatment of the ponies on the writers' part, but the whole point of the show was that ponies were fundamentally good beings who brought out the best in each other and other races through friendship. Twisting them into self-centered and suspicious jerks just felt like a massive retcon to justify the moral the writers really wanted to push.

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Like for Humpty Alexander Dumpty?

7732912 It would work so much easier if the Windigos themselves appeared first, either through Grogar's bewitching bell or through Grogar himself or even just the mean three bickering amongst themselves about what to do with Twlight and her friends. Then the Windigos appearing causes the ponies to become frightened, and they turn on each other not because of suspicion but out of self preservation.

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Wouldn't Windigoes appearing make ponies instinctively lean towards coming together and fighting them off with friendship? The division we saw was one of ponies who clearly don't believe in such tales.

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It doesn't make a lot of sense as is. Even if they didn't believe in Windigoes before, you think once they're proven wrong by the Windigoes actually appearing they would realize they should quit being so racist, especially because they literally only appeared after everypony started being super racist.

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Well, did we see them much between that and when they all got reunited?

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The first major reaction we see to the Windigoes from pretty much everypony is for them to double down on the racism. The Earth Ponies say it's the pegasi's problem and they should just hide, the pegasi say they can't rely on "Snooty" unicorns and try to just leave everypony else to their fate by blocking off the clouds, and the Unicorns jump right to just fortifying the shields around the school and only protecting themselves. They've been told the stories of the Windigoes their whole lives and how they appear to feed on racism and hatred, there is literally a whole holiday and a yearly play based on that story. But yet their first reaction on seeing them is to double down on the racism. Even if they didn't believe in Windigoes before now, they've clearly been proven wrong on that so you think their first reaction would be to think "Oh, right, they appear due to hatred, we messed up!"

Instead they only come back together because a bunch of Friendship School students remind them too, prior to that they were all just trying to isolate and abandon each other. Apparently only ponies who went to that darn school remember how the Windigoes work.

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To be honest, compared to a human's brain, the ponies would easily be swayed by either their own thoughts and opinions or somebody else's. But maybe deep down, all sentient beings in the many omniverses refuse to accept change in life so they turn against each other as an excuse in hopes everything will stay the same, forever.

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Instead of trying to go playing the Racist Card like they did, why didn't the show try to play the Incompetence Card for Seasons 8 & 9?

I've already mentioned this in great detail before, but instead of Twilight spending a season doing little miss schoolhouse only to 180 into a coronation plot for the last season, why not have the last two Seasons completely flip the script of what notions we had of Equestria on its head by having Ponykind essentially divided not by racial lines, but by political and ideological lines where the issues stem from War Hawks versus Peace Doves. The plot would have the perfect starting point: the aftermath of the 2017 Movie where Equestria was invaded and occupied by The Storm King's Army for three endless days.

The story of this Season 8 would have started out as normal, but instead of Twilight planning to start up a School out of nowhere, the Map Table sends them off on a Friendship Mission to Tall Tale, and for some reason; there seem to be several more different Cutie Marks floating over the general area next to the Mane Sixes' (more on that later), as they leave the Castle of Friendship, the audience can see that most rest of Ponyville is still in shambles as everyone of the Mane Sixs' friends and neighbors are hard at work trying to repair their homes and businesses while Twilight walks past them, the other Five seem to pause to consider between staying behind or following the Map Tables' advice. Ultimately they just follow Twilight.

From the faceted view of a Crystal, the sight plays out as a lone figure looks at the display before calling them "Foolish Wooden Dolls..."

Tall Tale is a different matter when The Mane Six arrive to find the burning husks of Storm King Insignia'd airships and a large-scale thunderstorm roiling over the city...

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Gonna raise a potentially controversial thought here: what if the ponies actually weren't that united in the first place? What of the Three Tribes only stayed together because of external threats? We know from the Hearth's Warming narrative they only became friends as the alternative was death by Windigo, and Equestria spent most of its existance surrounded by enemies. Friendship wasn't a thing maintained sincerely by most ponies. It was a survival strategy, and the second the external threats were gone they no longer had any reason to cooperate.

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Seems like somepony beat me to that theory. Oh well!

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Plus the comics established the whole mess as the result of one single pony (heavily implied to be Opaline) spreading racist propaganda - much like Chrysalis in the finale. Except that here, Twilight and her friends were, for some unspecified reason, utterly powerless to stop it from snowballing into a full-blown race war and resorted to basically blackmailing the tribes into getting along. As you say, there was no shortage of interracial relationships (both friendship and romance) - by all logic, there should have been much more of an opposing force than there appeared to be.

On top of that, rather than blasting Opaline with friendship lasers and chucking her in Tartarus, Twilight cut off Equestria from the world at large to keep her out.

One way or another, we're talking about complete societal breakdown, accurate knowledge of G4-era history just about completely erased from the public consciousness, and entire generations of ponies living and dying with the belief that the other tribes always were and always would be their enemies. Any way you spice it, that's just way too bleak for a normally lighthearted work such as My Little Pony. If Hasbro really wanted to push "themes of diversity and inclusion", they could just as easily have made the plot about preventing all that.

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The tribes were also reliant on one another for important things - earth ponies growing food, pegasi managing the weather, and unicorns producing the magical doodads behind their more advanced technology.

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The only source we have for Opaline being the root cause of the collapse is Discord, a being known for playing fast and loose with the truth.